28 comments:

I tried the same thing and got the same results. My guess is that the script just computes a checksum on the text you paste in, uses that essentially random value to index into a table of well-known authors, and gives you a result with a few sponsored links and ad hits.

I tried two passages from the same blog post and I got Kurt Vonnegut and Cory Doctorow. Over around a dozen different passages from my blog the only consistent thing was that Kurt Vonnegut (whoever he is) matched about a third.

Some paragraphs snipped from pieces by H.P. Lovecraft variously came up as George F. Wallace, and as James Joyce.

Uh, Joyce and Lovecraft wrote NOTHING alike. For one thing, I find Lovecraft to be pretty interesting and less than soporific.

This thing is a random number generator, plain and simple. Give it no more respect than the silly on-line quizzes written by 14 year old fans, to determine which character in X series of TV show, books, or movies you might be.

I was really hoping to score a "Writes like Larry Correia" because that would have been totally awesome.

But Dan Brown does sleep on top of a giant pile of money... Hmmm... I do believe my next novel will be filled with cliches, made up religious trivia passed off as fact, and fabricated nonsense from art history. I'll make the villian a "hulking albino" and I'll make BILLIONS!! Mu Wah HA HA HA!

A couple of Arthur C. Clarke. A Neil Gaiman. Two of the ubiquitous David Foster Wallace, whoever the heck he is. Then Anne Rice and J. K. Rowling -- I speculated at the time that was because that was two parts of an alien-viewpoint story where the aliens are mostly female, and all the viewpoint characters are. Lots of "she/her", little or no "he/him".

I pretty much had the same experience as everybody else here, with lots of David Foster Wallace and H.P. Lovecroft.

My favorite response was "Vladimir Nabokov" - to this:

"Well, a bunch of the boys from the WR Bar outfit was settin' around the old virtual campfire the other night after a long day chasin' the boss's cows, and in amongst the usual pissin' and moanin' about saddle sores and tight boots the talk got around to firearms.

Everbody started to draggin' out his favorite shootin' irons, and I swan it weren't long before they was just a goin' on to where you'da thought somebody was gonna git up and start spoutin' Shakespeare about his pet hogleg. I just sorta lurked around at the edge of the firelight and laid low, on accounta I ain't armed. I been hangin' my sombrero in a bunkhouse where there's just ever kind of rule against keepin' Evil Machines in your footlocker, and if I was to keep my old 1911 around here I'd be breakin' all kinds of local ordinances. And I'd never do that, acourse.

Afterwhile the general discussion got back around to politics like it will, and the Ramrod made a coupla observations about Chicago. Since they'd bout put away their arsenals, I figgered it was safe to offer a little offhand opinion about the subject. They mostly all just treat me like I'm harmless, and keep me around to make sure the coffee don't boil over and put out the campfire, I reckon. And ever now and then they'll send me out with the hoot owls to yodel a little bit and settle down the dogies when they'd rather be sleepin'. They're a helluva buncha fellas."